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Collbran man booked in ‘sexting’ case

A 60-year-old man traded sexually explicit text messages over several days with a Mesa County sheriff’s investigator who was posing as a young girl as part of a “sexting” investigation, an arrest affidavit alleges.

Cyrus Tuchscher, of Collbran, surrendered Monday at Mesa County Jail after an arrest warrant was issued on suspicion of a single count of Internet sexual exploitation of a child.

The affidavit said Tuchscher became the focus of an investigation Dec. 28 after the father of an 11-year-old girl reported text message exchanges between his daughter and Tuchscher. The girl, along with her brother and mother, had lived with Tuchscher for a short period in Collbran, the affidavit said.

Tuchscher had recently taken the children out to lunch and he had provided the girl a business card with his cell phone number, the affidavit said. The girl told an investigator she and Tuchscher at first exchanged normal messages, but that his communication with her changed to “bad things” starting four days before Christmas.

“She described this as telling her that her boyfriend was too old and she did not need a guy to feel good to have pleasure,” the affidavit said.

The affidavit alleges Tuchscher had sent the girl a series of sexually explicit messages, telling her “how babies are made” and expressing his desire to “make love.”

The girl gave her cell phone to an investigator, who engaged Tuchscher in a series of explicit text messages over two days in December, the affidavit said.

When finally interviewed, Tuchscher explained he was “just trying to be her friend,” the affidavit alleged.

Tuchscher on Monday posted a $10,000 bond and is scheduled for an initial court appearance today.